Hmm, this is some very interesting information, and points to the conclusion that men may indeed need to be very worried about whether they are also carriers for the breast cancer gene, which is known for dramatically increasing the likelihood that a woman may develop breast cancer, and which also may prove to be a multi purpose sort of cancer gene because it’s demonstrating that it may also play a role in men’s risks of getting prostate cancer.  Not to trivialize the importance of this gene by calling it multipurpose, but I’m trying to get the point across that this gene may cause a lot more problems than initially thought, for both women and men.

The two breast cancer genes that have been identified, which are called  BRCA1 and BRCA2 in medical terminology, may be partially responsible for giving men an even more agressive form of prostate cancer than if they did not have the so called breast cancer gene.  Men with certain mutations of this gene are more likely to be affected, and if they were tested positive for these specific mutations, esepecially if they were in one of the more at risk ethic groups of Jewish and European descent, they would need to be more vigilent in their PSA screenings which show evidence of elevated levels of a chemical in the body that indicates prostate cancer may have developed.

The studies that have been done so far have shown that the presence of the breast cancer gene that has mutated definitely has a correlation to more agressive and faster growing prostate tumors in men, but they have not yet developed a way to test tumors on the prostate that have these agressive tendencies, making it harder to figure out which men should be going through more agressive and serious treatment earlier on.  Especially since prostate tumors can be present for years and not even grow that much.

It certainly does say that the medical industry is concerned they may over treat men who don’t need that level of intervention yet, and it also says that we have a long way to go when it comes to diagnosing the seriousness of certain tumors, and gene therapy may eventually give us a huge leg up in that area, making successful and effective treatments more attainable.  This may also lead to more developments against breast cancer as well since they do involve the same gene.

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Posted in Breast Cancer Prevention by Breast News Girl No Comments Yet